1. Field of the Invention
Various embodiments of the invention relate to devices for gestural control of a system, and to associated methods.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the context of simple commands, such as those applied to televisions, video recorders, multimedia players, or television decoders, remote controls using buttons have come to the fore. The principle generally applied is to associate a function of the remotely controlled system with a button of the remote control. The growing number of functions of the system to be controlled has led to a growth, in the same proportion, to the number of buttons on the remote controls.
Specific screens presenting a visual man machine command interface have made it possible to control this growth. On these screens, the user can move gradually, by successive selections on various options presented on the screen, and validate his choice of command. These interfaces remain unwieldy and complex to use and do not allow intuitive navigation in the system control means as a whole.
In parallel, advanced systems control principles (for example via screens) have been developed and designed over the last thirty years jointly with advances in the possibilities offered by desktop computer mice. The latter make it possible to control a large number of functions of these systems with the aid of a small number of commands.
To achieve this, these desktop computer mice have notably introduced a set of commands controlled by the movement of the mouse on the desktop. This computer mouse movement is notably utilized by the user to control the position of a cursor on the screen which can indicate the state of the system and makes it possible to simply activate contextual functions of this position with the aid of a much reduced number of buttons.
The utilization of the movement of the user, hitherto limited to a context of displacement of a mouse on a table (and consequently in a two-dimensional space), has more recently been widened to a context of free movement in space, by “air mice”, thereby making it possible to widen the context of application to situations in which no plane horizontal support is present, also allowing access to movements in relation to the three dimensions in space. The applicational situations thereof are multifold, such as that of a speaker who desires to control a system (notably a piece of software on his computer) without constraint of accessing a plane of support, or else that of a multimedia system user (for example a television viewer or a user who desires to view photos on his television, or to play music, etc.) utilizing a multimedia computing system. In both cases, the user's environment is devoid of plane support which would allow the utilization of a desktop mouse.
In the context of the previously introduced multimedia systems, and until recently, man-system interaction was based on remote controls divested of movement capture functions. As described previously, the remote controls thus designed have ended up being equipped with a large number of buttons, necessary for the control of multimedia systems affording ever more functionalities. The set of commands necessary for the control of a system is large and gives rise to great complexity for the user. The latter must therefore memorize the numerous actions to be carried out to activate each command. He must also frequently verify that the buttons that he activates are those which correspond to the expected action, thereby causing his gaze to go back and forth numerous times between the screen and the remote control.
The decline in the costs of movement sensors has made it possible to introduce commands through movements in space in this application context.
These systems with gestural control in space, i.e. in three dimensions, are intended to significantly improve the ergonomics of the user interface through the use of intuitive gestures while reducing to the minimum the interaction involving conventional commands triggered by buttons.
These devices for gestural control of systems are becoming increasingly commonplace, such as mice or remote controls for games consoles or multimedia systems. They are often used, for example, to control the position of a cursor on the screen, such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,440,326 which describes the control of a cursor on the screen on the basis of a gyroscope. Remote controls with measurement of the movement also make it possible to recognize gestures and thus to launch specific actions related to these gestures, or to control continuous levels (such as the intensity of the sound, or the scrolling of a document, the playing speed of a video, etc.). The movement of the user must then be interpreted by various procedures for processing the movement signals corresponding to what is expected, thereby requiring the activation of the appropriate mode at the appropriate moment according to the user's intention: this may entail a mode of control of the position of the cursor by movement, a gesture recognition mode, a mode of control of a continuous level.
Known, for example, is European Patent Application No. EP1985233A1, which pertains to a method for detecting a substantially invariant axis of rotation of a movement of a mobile object equipped with at least one inertial or magnetic sensor with three sensitivity axes.
Currently, passage from one mode to the other requires that the user declares his intention, this being conventionally implemented through the assigning of buttons for each intention on the remote control. Situations therefore persist in which the user must still press buttons, for example to pass from one mode to the other.